Nokia's former chief executive has denied being planted in the firm by Microsoft before its acquisition of the company.

Stephen Elop, who previously headed Microsoft’s business division, became Nokia’s chief executive in 2010 and was the first non-Finnish chief in the company’s 149-year history.

Elop faced significant criticism for his handling of Nokia, including that he was a “Trojan horse” placed at the helm in charge of Nokia to bring it into a purchasable position for Microsoft. Elop fervently denies this.

"Additionally, all fundamental business and strategy decisions were made with the support and approval of the Nokia board of directors, of which I was a member."

Nokia’s annual revenue, profits and share price fell dramatically during Elop’s tenure, and he was instrumental in the company’s decision to ditch its long-held Symbian software for Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

Elop was then the driving force behind negotiations to sell Nokia’s struggling mobile phone business to Microsoft, which resulted in his move to be head of Microsoft’s new Devices unit that includes the acquired Nokia business renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy.

Analysts viewed Elop’s role in the sale of Nokia’s phone business to Microsoft as a good thing for Nokia shareholders. Yet in light of the struggles of HP and BlackBerry to find value in their handset businesses, shareholders reportedly described Elop’s handling of Nokia as a “triple-A-flop”(in Finnish) that put Nokia on the “road to ruin” and led to the “funeral of Nokia phones”.

'Connect the next billion people to Microsoft's services'

During the Q&A Elop also hinted that Microsoft would keep Nokia’s X Android smartphone initiative alive, which uses the open-source version of Android but with Microsoft applications and services instead of Google’s.

“Microsoft acquired the mobile phones business, inclusive of Nokia X, to help connect the next billion people to Microsoft's services,” Elop said in response to a question about the future of the Nokia X. “Nokia X uses the MSFT cloud, not Google's. This is a great opportunity to connect new customers to Skype, Outlook.com and Onedrive for the first time. We've already seen tens of thousands of new subscribers on MSFT services.”

The Nokia X’s long-term future is still in doubt, however, with Microsoft looking to produce cheaper, lower-entry Windows Phones to attract a new market of first-time smartphone buyers, which it now has the capability to do itself.

"Our intent is for the Microsoft Devices Group to 'make the market' so that others can participate, so we will be doing things to facilitate other OEMs as much as possible,” said Elop.